The Great Escape
by Geraldine Written
Summary: This is, more or less, the story of an apostate, his bride, and their great escape.
1. Chapter 1

The parchment was massive—a tapestry of gilded words—and something proud and caged stirred in Malcolm's breast at the sight of his name in the elaborate loops and curves of the Orlesian script.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Consuelon said and watched the four faces, shadowed and youthful, as they took in the honor and formalities: Malcolm, lost in some daydream; Orsino, so stoic he'd look bored to eyes that didn't know him well; Rosamund, open-mouthed and teary-eyed; Boniface, trying to look as though it were every day he was invited to brush shoulders with the well-coffered and well-born.

It was more than _impressive_ , Malcolm thought, it was… it was women in jeweled masks and hooped gowns, as beautiful and light-footed as butterflies; it was a goblet of wine that cost more than everything he'd ever owned; it was a breeze that smelled like pine and a horse beneath him and slender arms wrapped about his waist. The horse was a stallion, dark as obsidian, with a splotch of white between the eyes, and the beast did not gallop so much as fly between the pines. He had never seen a horse outside the pages of a book, and indeed the stallion in his fantasy had a striking similarity to the one pictured in the _Compendium of Beasts and Their Magical Properties_ he'd read to tatters.

He could almost feel her _(whose?_ ) arms about his waist.

"Malcolm?" Orsino was nudging him. "Wandering the Fade?"

There was a murmur of laughter and Malcolm flashed a winsome smile. There was a careless beauty about him, in the cloud of dark curls about his face and the gold-flecked brown eyes that were dark almost to blackness in the candlelight. Rosamund, who had been staring at him as intently as he'd stared at the parchment, caught his eye for a moment and felt her cheeks burn as red as her name. He pretended not to notice; he'd been pretending not to notice for three years.

"As I was saying," the Senior Enchanter continued with an easy patience, "the details are still unclear, but all of the necessary permissions have been granted. Unsurprisingly, nearly the entirety of the Order has volunteered for escort duty, but I expect the selections will be made—"

Malcolm's fantasy of drinking entirely too much spiced wine and pretending he was an Orlesian nobleman died under the watchful eyes of some templar clunking around behind him.

"You are not just an evening's entertainment," Consuelon said and the severity in his tone brought Malcolm back to the cold, dimly lit room. "You are representatives of the Circle of Kirkwall, and in that you are representative of two things much larger than yourselves—mages, _all_ mages, and Kirkwall itself." There was a heavy silence, accentuated by the crackling fire. "I want you to enjoy yourselves," he continued, his voice softening, "but I want you to remember."

 _Remember._ Malcolm looked toward the open door and the templar posted outside it, no doubt listening to every word… yes, there was more to remember than piety and patriotism.

"Will we meet the Grand Duchess?" Boniface asked, breaking the silence. He was the son of a pair of White Spire mages and fancied himself a patriotic Orlesian, though he'd spent his entire life in the Free Marches.

"I'm sure," Consuelon said.

"Even me?" Orsino asked. Rosamund glanced at his ears, then down at her hands, as if looking were as bad as the slur.

"Offer to show her how elves butter their bread," Malcolm said. There was a long, horrible moment of quiet, then Orsino laughed, and then they were _all_ laughing, the tension that had fallen over them dispelled as easily as a hand through a cloud of smoke.

 _(for the rest of his life_

 _it was that memory of Malcolm_

 _careless, quick-witted_

 _that gave knife ear no power over him)_

"Maker help the Orlesians if Malcolm ever plays the Game," Consuelon said.

* * *

 _If you squint_ , Leandra thought, _he doesn't look so effeminate_.

She stood before her betrothed's portrait, hands clasped behind her back, and observed him with a solemn squint. _Guillaume de Launcet_. He'd the smooth, round face of a boy given to an over fondness for treacle tarts, and a carefully trimmed and styled mustache curled above his lips. He was not displeasing to the eye—his reddish blond hair was his best feature—but she was acutely aware that she could not spend her life _squinting_ at her husband.

"Well?" her mother prompted.

"He looks very… nice," Leandra said, searching for a genuine compliment. And the boy in the portrait _did_ have a certain kindness in his eyes.

"He looks like a girl with a mustache," Gamlen said and laughed.

Leandra tried not to smile (and failed), but their mother rounded on Gamlen too quickly to catch her. "If your only purpose is to make disparaging remarks about your sister's future husband—" Bethann began, fixing her son with a look that would freeze saltwater.

 _(She thinks he does, too. She doesn't want Gamlen to make me see it.)_

"Her future wife, you mean," Gamlen said and sulked under his mother's glare.

"He _does_ look a bit girlish, Mama," Leandra tried to intervene. Gamlen opened his mouth, ready with some fresh insult, and she caught his eye. His throat worked, straining at his self-control, and she widened her eyes ever so slightly in a wordless plea. He looked away with a frown and held his tongue.

"He might be clean shaven at the ball," Bethann said and turned back to the portrait. There was a twist at the corner of her mouth. "The emperor has kept himself clean shaven three months now and I've heard there's been a following for the style."

"Perhaps," Leandra said. Then, trying to please: "I'll be happy to see him again, mustache or no."

Bethann smiled and reached out to stroke her daughter's cheek. "Of course you will. Now, the steward needs me, but I'll be back to talk about the ball. I want you to pick something from that book of patterns for us to discuss—Orlesian, of course."

"Yes, Mama," Leandra said with practiced obedience as Bethann kissed her forehead. The Lady Amell said nothing to her son—did not even look at him—as she swept out of the room. The two of them were quiet, as still as statues, until the sound of her footsteps whispering on the marble floor were gone.

"Thanks," Gamlen said. "Pretty sure she was about to start the whole 'honor of an Orlesian marriage' speech again."

"Do you _really_ think he looks like a girl?"

There was a quiet sadness in her voice, a soft desperation, that made him pause and reconsider the portrait. "I… well, no, he doesn't look like a girl, not really, he's just so…"

"Orlesian," Leandra finished.

They looked at each other in silence, both thinking of that immaculately curled mustache and certain the other was too… and then burst into laughter.

"Thank the Maker you're the one marrying him!"

"He has a sister," Leandra said innocently.

"No."

"But _Gamlen_ ," she went on in exaggerated tones, "think of the _honor_ of an _Orlesian marriage_."

Her brother groaned. "You know, you really do sound just like her when you're doing that."

"Why, the _last_ time a daughter of the _House of Amell_ married into the _Orlesian nobility_ —" Leandra plowed on, mimicking their mother to perfection, and Gamlen threw a velvet cushion at her head. She shrieked and dove behind the chaise longue (one of several gifts sent in her betrothed's name with his most recent portrait,) flailing around the back of the chair for something to fire back at him.

* * *

"Did you see Rose?" Orsino said later in the semi-privacy of their shared quarters. "I thought she was going to faint when Consuelon told her she could wear a gown instead of robes. You'd think the ball was in her honor the way she's been going on about it." He was hunched over a parchment at his writing desk with a thoughtful frown. "And it's for some duchess, right? Flora...?"

Malcolm stared at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head, and traced the familiar cracks with his eyes, half-sure someone before him had tried to etch Bellitanus in the stone. The room was not truly large enough for two to share, but close quarters was a fact of life in the Gallows. "Grand Duchess Florianne," he said, letting each word dance on his tongue. "The emperor's niece."

Orsino sighed. "I don't even speak Orlesian."

"It's mostly Kirkwallers, I bet," Malcolm said. "Just memorize a few things—it's a pleasure to meet you, you honor me with your presence, where is the cheese—important things."

"Where is the cheese," Orsino repeated with a snort.

"Où est le fromage."

Orsino looked over at him, taken aback by what appeared to be effortless Orlesian (it was a proper sentence, as it were, though the accent was terrible.) "You're a genius," he said flatly.

Malcolm met his eyes with a grin and a raised eyebrow. "Because I know how to locate Orlesian cheese? Wait until you see me tell a templar to fuck off in Rivaini."

Orsino laughed even as he cast a nervous glance to the door and the templar he knew would be walking the corridor. "No. Well, yes, that's part of it, but you know what I mean."

"I'm sure I don't," Malcolm lied easily.

"Consuelon had to pick four mages," Orsino persisted. He set his quill down and turned. "Four, out of everybody here, and you're one of them."

Malcolm shrugged. "So are you."

"Yes, but… you know he picked the best."

"Please," Malcolm said and grinned. "Don't be so modest."

Orsino sighed and rose from his seat, wondering why he'd tried to have a serious conversation with _Malcolm_ of all people. "I'm going to the library; I've got an idea of what I want to do for my performance, but I still need to work out the details."

There was a flicker in Malcolm's smile. _Performance._

"Something wrong?" Orsino paused at the door, curious at what he'd seen on his friend's face.

"Hm?" Malcolm feigned distraction. "Thinking."

"Right then. I'll be back in a few hours, I guess."

The door clicked shut and Malcolm let out his breath in a gusty sigh. _Performance_. He imagined himself walking into the ball with a leash about his neck, led by some templar _(Ser Veryn, always Ser Trick-the-Tranquil Veryn)_ with a buck-toothed gape. He imagined the faces of the wealthy and the noble as he _performed_ for them—they would ooh and aah at the simplest of fire conjurings like it were anything more than a first year apprentice's trick—see him as no more than a domesticated beast, carefully supervised and sent back to its cage when—

"Stop," he told himself quietly. There were enough unpleasant truths about _(the Circle)_ life without poisoning his daydreams with them. He would keep his daydreams for sweeter things… like slender arms about his waist and a breeze that didn't smell of the Waking Sea.

* * *

"I am so happy to see you again... of course, let us dance... would you accompany me to the gardens..." Leandra whispered Orlesian pleasantries into the darkness of her bedroom. There was an aching stillness to the night and she turned, clutching a pillow to her chest, to look at Guillaume de Launcet's portrait on the wall above her writing desk. There was more disinterest in his eyes than kindness…

"I learned to love your father," Bethann had said, sensing the restlessness in her daughter's heart. "For a wise woman, love comes after marriage."

Leandra tried to remember the short, fair-haired Orlesian boy, but it had been two years since last she'd seen him and the portrait suggested he was much changed; the Guillaume she remembered had been little more than a scarecrow with a touch of fuzz beneath his nose. _He's only fifteen._ Somehow, she had been expecting... she sighed and turned again, staring up at the canopy in wordless frustration. She had been twelve when first they'd met, and even then she'd felt a sense of disappointment—the storybook prince she'd imagined was just a ten-year-old boy with ruddy cheeks, an indecipherable accent, and an aversion to anything that might soil his exquisitely-tailored clothes.

She sat up, grabbed her pillow, and threw it at the portrait. It didn't even make it over the chaise longue. There was almost certainly an insolent disregard in his eyes.

It could be worse. Phyllis Lafaille's parents were talking of betrothing her to a nobleman who was twice her age. "You're lucky," Phyllis had confided to her with a jealous glower. "At least he's not old enough to be your father. And you'll get to be the Comtesse de Launcet one day! And he's really not so bad to look at." Leandra squinted at the portrait. In the darkness, when you could barely see the details of his face in the first place, it was easy to turn him into the dark, dashing prince of her girlhood dreams—or Gaspard de Chalons perhaps, the sighing daydream of every girl from Val Royeaux to Minrathous (or so you'd think, the way Phyllis went on about him.)

There was a tapping on her chamber door.

Leandra stared at the door, wondering if it was just her imagination; the moon was high and the house had been dark for more than an hour. The door began to creep open and she jerked the curtains closed about her bed, suddenly remembering every story she'd ever heard about Lowtown brigands stealing into houses—a candle was thrust through the crack, then Gamlen's face appeared above it.

"Leandra?" he whispered. "Are you—"

"You nearly scared me to death!" Leandra whispered back and parted the curtains. "I thought you were—what are you doing?"

"Going out your window," he said and shut the door.

"What?" Leandra scrambled off the bed and followed him to the open doors of her balcony. It was high summer and the gardens were in full bloom. Gamlen said nothing, only peered over the edge of her balcony as if he were trying to solve a puzzle.

"Gamlen," she insisted. " _What_ are you doing?"

"Sneaking out." He hoisted himself onto the ledge and grabbed at the vine-wrapped trellis.

"If Father and Mother find out—"

"They'll be more disappointed in me than usual. What, are you going to tell?"

Leandra bristled, offended. "I've never told!"

"You're the best of sisters," he said and kissed her cheek.

"Where are you going?" she asked and looked over her shoulder, expecting their parents to come rushing in at any moment.

"Out," he replied, halfway down the trellis

"Gamlen!" she hissed.

"Don't wait up," he said and grunted as he jumped from the trellis to the cobbles. She started to call after him again but he was gone, as light-footed on brick and cobble as their mother in her heavy gowns.

 _I may not be a disappointment_ , Leandra thought, _but I'm certainly not having as much fun as you_.


	2. Chapter 2

Maud was a stout little creature, barely past her fifth birthday, with large grey-green eyes swollen by tears.

"See this bucket?" Malcolm asked and pushed it toward her. "Do you see what's in it?"

"Water," she said and hiccuped.

"Magic water," Malcolm said, dropping his voice to a conspirator's whisper.

"What's a magic water?"

"Pour it on my head and you'll find out," he said and bowed his head.

Maud stared at the top of his head, then looked at the bucket—an ordinary wooden bucket with a worn handle, much like the one she'd watched her Nan carry back and forth from the well to the cottage… the tears threatened again at the thought of Nan's face _("No!" "Please, it's a mistake, she can't be a mage, we've never had one in this—" "Nan!")_ but a week of them had made her heart and body weary… and there was a bucket full of magic. Carefully, she lifted the bucket and turned it over his head… and nothing happened. She waited in confused silence, then shook the bucket, and when that failed set it back on the floor to investigate. "It won't come out," she said at last in wonder. "Is it broked water?"

"Magic water," Malcolm reminded her. A smile lit up her wet, blotchy face.

The shuffle of footsteps caught his ear and he looked over her to see Orsino walking through the arched entrance to the corridor. "Want to play a trick?" he asked her and her eyes grew wide. "You're a mage and that means you're very special. It means you can do things—wonderful things—that a lot of people can't do. And you can even—"

"The man said mages are bad," Maud whimpered and looked at her feet.

 _Little more than a baby and already ashamed of something she'll never be able to change._ It was hard to keep the smile on his face. Gently, he tilted her chin up to him, all the more gently because he felt the coil of something dark and hot and angry in his guts. "The man was wrong. You are a very good girl, Maud. And you're going to be a very good mage." She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes.

"And this is my friend Orsino," he said as the other man drew close. "He's a mage too."

Maud stared up at him. "You have knife ears!"

"That's the first time I've ever heard that sound like a compliment," Orsino said dryly.

There was a swell of noise and movement at the back of the room and Malcolm saw that the children were gathering around their mentors. He patted the top of Maud's head. "Scoot along. I'll talk to you later, okay? And, uh… don't say that someone has knife ears, it could make them sad. And you don't want to make anyone sad, right?" Maud shook her head vigorously, blonde braids whipping back and forth, then ran to the other children.

"Did she come in with Ser Veryn this morning?" Orsino asked. Gossip spread like wildfire within the confines of the Gallows and it had taken an hour for anyone who wasn't sleeping with a pillow over their head to hear that the templars had brought in new faces.

"Ser Veryn," Malcolm said. There was a bite in his voice. "Of course. I should have known. Ser _fucking_ Veryn. She said 'the man' told her mages were bad." His hands were clenched, the knuckles white.

Orsino fidgeted and wished he wouldn't— "Speaking of Ser Veryn," he blurted out, "I came to tell you they've posted the escort to the ball."

"What? Who?" Malcolm forgot his anger for a moment.

"Knight-Commander Guylian—"

"Of course."

"—and Sers Meredith, Erwan, Maurevar… Veryn," he finished hesitantly.

Malcolm groaned. Meredith was a stick-in-the-mud who would have written the book on rules and regulations if it hadn't already existed (a future Knight-Commander if ever there'd been one) and Erwan was the third son of some highly born Kirkwall magistrate with a superiority complex (the exact type of man the Order loved to enlist, in his opinion.)

Veryn was just a stupid fucking bastard.

"Who's Maurevar? I don't know that name."

"Umm, Maurevar Carver. He's not been here long. Transferred from the Circle in Ferelden. He's been with the apprentices."

Ferelden. A memory, fifteen years gone, stirred in his mind's heart. He could almost remember what his mother sounded like… the smell of the pine trees that had surrounded the farmhouse...

"I'm guessing with four that there'll be one assigned to each of us," Orsino went on.

"And the Knight-Commander will just wander about and be admired," Malcolm said and pushed down the memory. "We should give them a reason to wear all that armor; I've always wanted to shout, 'Abomination!' in a crowded ballroom."

"How lightly you speak of the dangers of magic," came Ser Meredith's voice from behind them.

* * *

 _"...ohhhh, I knooow she is theeere, daaaaaaisieeeees in'er haaaaaair…"_

Leandra stirred and opened her eyes to the warm shadows of her bedroom. There were scattered flickers of golden light and she blinked, caught between Kirkwall and an Orlesian dream, before realizing the lights were fireflies… yes, fireflies… she had left her balcony doors open through the night and they had wandered in from the gardens.

 _"...waaaiiitiiiiing by theee chaaaantry to maaaaarry meeeee…"_

Gamlen had never been able to carry a tune. Leandra frowned and pressed her face into the cool, silken sheet beneath her pillow; she was too warm for her coverlet, but the air was too crisp for the thin cotton and lace of her night's gown…

 _"...ruuuuuuuby on theee greeeeeeen…"_

Leandra bolted upright. There was light in the sky and the candle at her bedside had burned down to the wick. Somewhere, lost in the bed, was the book she'd been reading; she couldn't remember falling asleep, but she did remember having to read the same page three times, and the feeling that her eyes were too heavy to—

 _"...peeeeetals loooost an' driiiiftiiiiiiiiiing…"_

It was Gamlen's unmistakable baritone.

The coverlet had tangled about her legs in the night and she kicked at it in frustration. Bethann rarely stirred before noon, and the servants were more inclined to whisper than tattle, but Aristide rose and set with the sun. Their father had the sweet, docile face of a basset hound, but when his temper rose... she rushed to the balcony and peered over the ledge, blinking and shivering in the morning air. There, sprawled and singing in her mother's beloved elf-rooted roses, was Gamlen.

"You're drunk," she said, more to herself than him, but he opened his bloodshot eyes and smiled up at her.

"Leandra!" he crowed. "My sweet baby sister! What are _you_ doing here?"

 _I'm older than you_ , she thought, but did not bother with the fact—there were other, more important facts to contend with, one of which was that their father would explode if he stepped into the garden with his morning tea and saw Gamlen drunk and sprawled out in their mother's roses. "Gamlen," she pleaded in as loud a whisper as she dared. "Please, _please_ , be quiet!"

He muttered something in response and closed his eyes.

Leandra looked about the garden, then her bedroom, in desperation. Their father's study lay between the staircase and Gamlen's bedroom and he always worked with the door open... her eyes fell upon the ivy-covered trellis. She thought, absurdly, of a storybook prince climbing the weathered walls of a tower to his beloved, then imagined herself— _somehow, someway_ —hauling Gamlen up the trellis and down the corridor to his bedroom. She looked back down at him. His head was thrown back, mouth agape; he'd have made a marvelous birdbath.

"Gamlen?" she whispered. Then, louder: "Gamlen!"

He opened his eyes. "I am not so very drunk."

" _Hush_ and _listen_. I'm going to get Papa to come into my room and then you're going to sneak inside and get to bed. D'you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me what you're going to do."

"Bed."

" _Quietly_."

He made a harsh, sloppy _shhh_ noise and started to pull himself upright. Leandra watched him for a moment, then snatched her robe and tied it loosely about her waist. The corridor was quiet, but she could hear the faint laughter and conversation of the servants preparing her father's morning tea and breakfast. The door to his study was open and she took a deep, steadying breath before she stepped inside. The room was large, but so cluttered with books and knick-knacks that it seemed much smaller than it was. There was a faint scent of tobacco and, stronger, the incense her mother insisted he burn to cover the smell. He was absorbed in a thick, leather-bound book, his reading spectacles perched on the end of his aquiline nose, and she coughed to get his attention—an honest cough, truth be told, through the fog of the incense.

"Ah! Leandra!" Aristide smiled widely and put the book down. "You're up early, dear."

"I left the door to my balcony open," she blurted out. "And it was open all night and a—" _not a spider, he's terrified of spiders, he's always having me come in here and catch the spiders_ "—a firefly came in. And I'm... afraid," she finished lamely.

"A firefly?" He blinked at her, mystified. "Why, Leandra, you've never been—alright, alright," he said and rose from his desk. He was a short, thin man, easily a head below his wife and children, with a hairline that had been steadily marching backward for thirty years.

"Oh, do let's hurry, I'm so scared," she said, doing her best imitation of poor Genevieve Threnhold, who was frightened of everything from caterpillars to deathroot. Aristide followed her down the corridor to her bedroom and she threw a desperate glance towards the staircase _(hurry, hurry, hurry)_ as she shut the door behind them.

"There's nothing to fear from fireflies, Leandra," he said. "They're not like spiders, you know, they don't _bite_. Now, where is—"

He was speaking, but the words could have been Qunlat for all that she heard them. Her horrified eyes were fixed on the balcony and the sight of Gamlen caught between the ledge and the trellis, his doublet pulled up to his shoulders from where it had snared on the white-washed lattice. His chest was covered in ruby kisses. He met her eyes, smiled, and vomited.

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Malcolm hissed.

"Yes, it is," the Senior Enchanter agreed.

"Then _why_ —"

"Because it was what I negotiated down from your not being allowed to attend whatsoever. Now _sit_ down and try to _stay_ down?" Consuelon sighed and pressed his forehead against his hands. He'd been past his youth when Malcolm had first come through the gates of Kirkwall, but the white hair and wrinkles had never seemed to make him look old—until now. Malcolm sank down into his chair and shivered; even in high summer the rooms _(cells)_ of the Gallows were cold, and it seemed there was no place colder than the Senior Enchanter's rooms. _(They do it on purpose.)_

"It's not only you," Consuelon said. "Orsino's belongings have also been searched. I was assured your things would be put back to rights, just as you'd left them."

"Why? Maker's breath! _I_ was the one making jokes about abominations!"

"Ser Meredith noted in her report that Orsino commented on there being four templars and one assigned to each of you. The fact of the assignations had not been made known to the Circle and so she—"

"Anyone with half the brains the Maker gave a _nug_ could guess that four templars equals a personal guard to each—" Malcolm rose from his chair and the force of his movement made it screech backwards on the stone floor.

"Malcolm!" Consuelon held his hands up, palms open.

There was a sound in the corridor, the clanking shuffle of a templar's armor, and the noise made something fierce and hot tighten bands of iron about Malcolm's chest. "So because I've made a joke I'm not allowed to make a single move at the ball without a templar in lock step, is that right?"

"You will be escorted by Ser Maurevar," Consuelon answered. "Ser Meredith will escort Orsino."

"And the others? Boniface? Rose?"

"Ser Meredith wished to see investigations and restrictions for them—"

"On what grounds?" Malcolm demanded.

"Are you going to let me speak, Malcolm, or should I write it down and let you try to interrupt ink and parchment?" Consuelon snapped.

"I..." Malcolm sat down, remembering himself—of all the people who might have deserved his ire, the Senior Enchanter who had salvaged something for him from this wreck was not one. "I'm sorry, ser."

"I made the argument to the Knight-Commander that Ser Meredith was seeing conspiracies in the inappropriate banter of youth... an argument that he found most sensible. Boniface and Rosamund will face neither investigation nor restriction. And that is the whole of it. You may still attend the ball, but it will be under the personal escort of Ser Maurevar."

"Well, at least it's not Ser Veryn," Malcolm spat.

"I would not trust Ser Veryn to escort his piss to the privy," Consuelon said wearily. Malcolm started. "Yes, Malcolm, I'm capable of making a joke. And I really wouldn't trust him... I passed him in the corridor and he'd a reek of piss about him. The man must dribble in his armor."

* * *

Leandra opened the bureau at her bedside and looked at Guillaume's letters—they were neatly arranged in ribbon-tied stacks, so heavily perfumed that the scent always clung about the bureau, a letter sent every month since she'd been betrothed to him on her eleventh birthday. She wondered what he did with the letters she'd always dutifully sent in return. Once she had looked forward to his words with the breathless excitement of a young girl in love with love; the letter she now slipped in amongst the others had been greeted with an ambivalent smile.

She closed the drawer and looked at his portrait as if there was some way to speak to him through the painted canvas. "It really won't be a pleasure to see you," she said, belying everything she'd written in her response. "But I do expect you to be as handsome as your portrait, which is to say not at all."

"Ooooh, I knew there was some rebellion under all that 'Yes, Mama'!" Leandra spun, her heart in her throat. Mara laughed and crossed the room, arms folded beneath her ample bosom. "Sometimes I wish I had a Lord such-and-so for a father, and then I think about having to marry some Orlesian fop and I'm glad I'm common."

Leandra felt the vague stirrings of uneasiness that always came when Mara called herself common, but she was common and denying it would be about as pointless as insisting Phyllis wasn't fat... except that Phyllis was still perfectly lovely and Mara was far more pleasant to be around than some of her 'noble' friends. "Is Gamlen alright?" she asked, partly out of concern and partly to deflect from what she'd been caught saying.

"Oh, he'll be fine," Mara replied. "Milord shouting in his ear didn't look like it was helping the hangover." Leandra sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. Mara plopped down beside her. "But what's this about 'not at all handsome'?"

"Noth—"

"Something," Mara cut her off. Leandra set her mouth in a stubborn line, but Mara stared her down with an equally serene patience.

"He's coming to the ball," she said at last.

"Are you sure?"

"He wrote me and said as much," she said and reached out to open the drawer of letters on her bureau; his latest was alone, the beginning of a new pile. She laid it on her lap and smoothed out the creases in the parchment. His penmanship was neat but tiny and she squinted to make out the words. Squinting, squinting, I will have a lifetime of squinting with Guillaume de Launcet. "Ma chérie," she read. "Je espère que cette lettre—"

"I don't speak Orlesian," Mara reminded her.

"Oh… I forgot. Umm, he says that the Viscount informed the Grand Duchess that Papa was a guest of honor, and so she invited the de Launcets since I'm betrothed to Guillaume and—" Mara stared at her with an uncomprehending expression. "Ah, suffice to say... he's going to be here. And I know I should be happy, but..."

"But you don't want to spend the whole party on Gui—Gee—"

"Guillaume."

"Ugh. _Orlesians._ You don't want to spend the whole party on what's-his-name's arm and pretend to be madly in love with him."

"Yes." Leandra closed her eyes and propped her chin on her hands. _Why is it so much easier when someone else says it?_

She wanted... she had wanted... to dance. To dance and dance and dance. Perhaps with some handsome templar... or Leopold Reinhardt, who preferred men but was _such_ a wonderful dancer and made her laugh so hard she'd forget her steps in the waltzes. Such dalliances, she knew, would be done once the betrothal became a formal engagement...

"You don't have to marry him," Mara said as if it were that simple. "I wouldn't."

Leandra felt her breath catch

 _(she had thought that many times_

 _had thought that without letting herself think it_

 _formless words in the dead of night_

 _when she woke from hot, restless dreams)_

and swallowed down the wordless rush. "A wise woman falls in love after her wedding day," she said and thought of her parents' wedding portrait hanging in pride of place in the dining hall—solemn, hand-clasped strangers.

Mara scoffed. "When do wise people ever have any fun?"

"My brother has _plenty_ of fun and it always ends in—"

"Yeah, well, Gamlen's an idiot. Just because you're not being wise doesn't mean you can't be _smart_ about it."


	3. Chapter 3

There were no windows in the Gallows, but there had been once; if you looked closely at the walls, you could see the arched outlines of newer stone. The blaze of candlelight threw all the way to the rafters, revealing constellations painted by some forgotten artist, but Malcolm thought them a poor replacement for the truth. He was quiet, studying the black spheres that served for stars. The melancholy had come again. Like the templars, it never kept too far a distance.

 _A stone cage where the stars are black and the sun never rises._

"Thank the Maker the Circle isn't expected to provide music," Boniface murmured beside him. A makeshift orchestra had been assembled in the commons and Rosamund was clapping her hands in an effort to keep them on the same beat.

"I just wish we weren't expected to dance," Orsino said. The tables and chairs had been pushed back to the walls and a score of mages, mostly women, had come to see Rosamund give 'Orlesian waltzing lessons'.

"Well, you know... I doubt anyone will want to dance with you," Boniface assured him and waggled his index fingers.

"The one time in my life I'm thankful for racism."

A recognizable tune began to form in the clash of shawms and viols and string-harps and Rosamund let out a squeal of delight. "Who's playing that viol?" Malcolm asked, suddenly interested. It was a high, lively melody, and the others began to meander towards a harmony with it. They all looked closer at the orchestra. The viol was in the back, played by a freckled, middle-aged woman with red curls that had been cut boyishly short. She bore the sunburst brand of the tranquil on her forehead, and though her hands moved with precision over the viol, her eyes were vacant.

"Oh," Boniface said. "I didn't know they could… well, I mean… music is supposed to be expressive..."

 _No, there is sunshine in these walls... it's just that you'll only ever find it on someone's forehead..._

Rosamund rushed toward them, bright-eyed with excitement. She'd tried to pile her long, golden brown hair into an elegant Orlesian knot, but pieces of it had come loose and hung about her shoulders in a ragged, decidedly inelegant fashion.

"Malcolm?" Orsino frowned at the dark and distant look on his friend's face. "Are you—"

"I'm fine," he said evenly, but Orsino had known him long and well enough to hear the lie.

"Who's first?" Rosamund asked. The question was, ostensibly, for all of them, but her eyes lingered on Malcolm. There was a moment of silence that seemed an age—"Well?"—then Malcolm straightened and offered his hand. She stared at him, blushing, then shyly took it. He noticed neither her shyness nor her blush; he was as far away from her as the black stars on their stone sky.

 _Her name was—is—Zenaida. She had so much hair, and she wore it loose down her back. I used to wake up in the night and listen for her viol. Everyone told her it wasn't safe to be a Libertarian._

"...so well," Rosamund was saying and Malcolm realized she'd been speaking to him. "Are you sure you haven't done this before?" Her hand was warm and clammy in his and there was a high, rosy color in her cheeks. He felt a curious detachment from the dance—from his own self, as if he were a puppet moved by invisible strings. They turned, and turned again, and with each turn his gaze was drawn to Zenaida, to the shorn hair and the viol and the sunburst brand. "You're always so funny," she said and squeezed his hand.

"Thank you," he said, unsure of what else to say to her compliments and the expectant look in her eyes. He didn't feel funny. Looking at Zenaida, and the black stars, and the walled up windows, he found that his wits and laughter had fled him; he was twenty years old, but suddenly he was old and growing older in a cage without bars. "When did they catch Zenaida?"

There was a stutter in Rosamund's dreamy smile. "What?"

"Zenaida."

"Who?"

" _Zenaida_ ," he repeated. "The tranquil playing the viol. When did they catch her?"

"Oh. Umm, I don't know. I guess she came in with Ser Veryn and the children?"

"I never heard anything about her. I only heard about the children. Do you—you do remember her, don't you?"

"I remember that she ran away."

The floor was crowded with dancers, laughing and swirling and tripping through the waltz, and Malcolm felt a growing darkness in his mind, as if shadows were weighing on his shoulders; the louder the laughter, the happier the blur of faces, the darker and heavier it became. _They can put a brand on your forehead. They can take away your magic, take away everything that lets you love and hate and wish and feel, and you laugh while they watch you dance._

Rosamund pressed herself closer against him, close enough to feel the firmness of her breasts against his chest and smell the lavender in her disheveled hair, and Malcolm looked into her hungry, up-turned face.

"Never you mind that," she whispered. "Just kiss me."

And he kissed her.

* * *

"You're a vision!" Phyllis squealed and clapped her hands.

Leandra smiled at her friend, reflected behind her in the gilded floor length mirror, and plucked at the sleeves of the latest gown; her bedroom was strewn with colorful, discarded heaps of silk and velvet and encrusted jewels.

"But it's not Orlesian," she said, turning and looking over her shoulder at the lacings. "See the sleeves? Ferelden."

"Who cares?" Mara put in, stooping to pick up the rejected gowns. "If he cares more about politics than wondering what's under all that lace and velvet—"

"Mara!" both girls gasped, scandalized.

"Oh, you _want_ them to wonder."

"I do not!" Phyllis cried, cheeks flaming to her lie.

Leandra turned to her reflection again. She knew what was beneath the snowy lace and crimson velvet: the indent of her waist and the roll of flesh that she could pinch between her fingers, the childish point of her breasts, the navel that was turned .

"He'll think you're beautiful," Mara said, as if she could read her mistress's thoughts. "And he'll be a perfect gentleman. He'll be _such_ a perfect gentleman that he wouldn't _dare_ have such an impure thought."

"But what about you, Leandra?" Phyllis teased. "Do you keep your thoughts as chaste as a Sister's?"

"As chaste as a Mother's," she replied with exaggerated primness.

"As chaste as a Divine's, more like," Mara added. "A cold sponge bath would get me hotter and wetter than that face."

"Mara!" Leandra protested. "Really, that's not—"

Phyllis roared with laughter.

"—not kind at all, he's not ugly, he's just—"

"A sponge bath!" Phyllis shrieked. "Oh, Maker's mercy, I can't breathe—"

Leandra sighed and looked at his portrait. Guillaume was not handsome—he inspired nothing in her but a vague, tired fondness—but she wouldn't laugh at him. And his eyes _were_ kind... they were kind, and more than kind, perhaps they were sweet...

 _I want to love you,_ she thought. _I want to be good to you, even if I don't... even if it's not like in the tales, like the knights and their ladies. And I won't laugh at you. I bet a lot of people laugh at you. If you're good to me, and kind to me, I promise that I'll never laugh at you._

She set her jaw and clasped her hands, and stared into the blankness of his painted eyes as Phyllis howled.

And she never broke her promise.


End file.
